Cooper Middle School Math - horrible teacher

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask to be switched. Every schools know who the problematic teachers are and what they teach. No school is going to pro-actively move your kid so ask to have the kid moved and give examples of why.

This is one of the many reasons teachers burn out.

When schools honor these switches, the good teachers end up with huge classes and the “bad” teachers have minuscule rosters.

So the good teachers are taking home twice the papers to grade. They have twice the students to manage and twice the parent emails to answer.

So the good teachers burn out at a fast pace, often feeling tons of resentment because they are doing twice the work for the same pay.

And when they don’t honor these switches, a kid gets behind in math. The schools role is to educate students. Teachers could organize and advocate for the removal of low performing teachers if it’s adversely impacting their workplace, but for some reason I don’t see that effort…?

A) how would you even know if they did that or not? It’s a personnel issue. Of course you don’t “see” it

B) it wouldn’t work. Teachers have contracts. I cannot advocate for my colleague to be fired. If they have done something egregious like improperly touching or communicating with a child I can report that and admin can follow up and the school board can investigate and fire. Even THAT takes forever. We don’t like dead weight anymore than you do but we have no power to tell the school board to violate someone’s contract and fire them because they aren’t as good at teaching as others.

When I say “organize and advocate” I mean at the public level. Write letters as a group to the school board and ask for higher standards for teachers evaluations and metrics for success to be written into next years contract, ask your Union representatives (where applicable) to put in the contract negotiations that poor teachers lose union protection, whatever you want. But advocate for it in public with the power you have if it really does impact your working conditions and the dead weight really does bother you.

Because otherwise the point boils down to “I don’t want to do more because my colleague is bad at their job” which anyone in any job will tell you happens all the time— and is not the fault of the student.

Again, you have NO IDEA how teachers are or are not advocating for their workplace. We cannot stand in front of the school board at public meetings and make comments that name people, this is explicitly prohibited. We CAN report and write letters to admin , school board, ombudsman with concerns or complaints, and teachers do, but YOU WOULD NOT SEE THIS because it does not pertain to you!

You can stand in front of the schoolboard and say, poor performers are negatively impacting your working conditions and contributing to burnout. Just like you did here. You would have a lot of support from parents if you brought that up in a meeting.

As you see here, many parents do think poor performing teachers pertain to us when our children are assigned them and we are told to spend thousands for private tutoring, but not to use any school-based solutions because that contributes to burnout.

So your solution is to put the responsibility on the good teachers, who are high performing because they are already giving you their all. You want it to be their responsibility to fix the poor performers.

Blood from stone.

Can you name another profession where the common response is “I know your workload is beyond unsustainable and you are doing far more than we pay you for, but we expect even more. Sacrifice more. After all, it’s for the kids.”

I can’t imagine another profession where advocating for improvements to your own working conditions— because dead weight is “just as bad for teachers” right?— is characterized as an impossible sacrifice.

I’m doing a tremendous job. I’m the teacher with the large class sizes because parents switch their kids into my class. I’m doing my part and then some.

I am not admin. I can’t change what’s going on next door; I don’t have the time or authority. At some point, I have to say no. As it stands, you get me at my best. My family gets me at my worst. So no, I can’t fix other classrooms for you.

So as I already sacrifice my health and family for you, ask yourself why you think you can demand more.

And before you come at me for finding time during the school day: this is my 12 minute break before the 4 hour marathon to my next break. I’m entitled.

Clearly you're appreciated, but you seem to want to play martyr with a big spoonful of "if your kids fail it's not my fault."

No one was blaming you or expecting you to do the impossible. They just want their own kids to succeed and not get dragged down by another teacher who can't teach.

No, I’m not being a martyr. I’m being asked to be one. There’s a difference.

I’m doing my job. It’s not my responsibility to remove poor-performing teachers.

There are people employed by the school system with that responsibility: administrators. Yet the PP isn’t demanding they do the job they were hired to do; she’s saying successful teachers should do this for her, as well. Because apparently we aren’t doing enough for the children as it is.

It’s just another unreasonable and illogical demand placed on teachers.

You’re truly narcissistic in your ability to make everything about you.

Well, since I’m literally the one being told to do more, I guess it is about me. I’m not sure what’s narcissistic about that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask to be switched. Every schools know who the problematic teachers are and what they teach. No school is going to pro-actively move your kid so ask to have the kid moved and give examples of why.

This is one of the many reasons teachers burn out.

When schools honor these switches, the good teachers end up with huge classes and the “bad” teachers have minuscule rosters.

So the good teachers are taking home twice the papers to grade. They have twice the students to manage and twice the parent emails to answer.

So the good teachers burn out at a fast pace, often feeling tons of resentment because they are doing twice the work for the same pay.

And when they don’t honor these switches, a kid gets behind in math. The schools role is to educate students. Teachers could organize and advocate for the removal of low performing teachers if it’s adversely impacting their workplace, but for some reason I don’t see that effort…?

Teachers are NOT going to try to get other teachers fired. Do you try on the daily to get your co-workers fired?

I’m a manager— firing poor performers is my responsibility to everyone on my team for exactly the reasons discussed here: if they aren’t fired everyone else has a worse working environment and has to pick up their slack.

Maybe you are not familiar with American school system.
There is a book about the fall public school system: Waiting for "Superman" and a documentary film with the same name.
Check it out and you will be desperate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask to be switched. Every schools know who the problematic teachers are and what they teach. No school is going to pro-actively move your kid so ask to have the kid moved and give examples of why.

This is one of the many reasons teachers burn out.

When schools honor these switches, the good teachers end up with huge classes and the “bad” teachers have minuscule rosters.

So the good teachers are taking home twice the papers to grade. They have twice the students to manage and twice the parent emails to answer.

So the good teachers burn out at a fast pace, often feeling tons of resentment because they are doing twice the work for the same pay.

And when they don’t honor these switches, a kid gets behind in math. The schools role is to educate students. Teachers could organize and advocate for the removal of low performing teachers if it’s adversely impacting their workplace, but for some reason I don’t see that effort…?

A) how would you even know if they did that or not? It’s a personnel issue. Of course you don’t “see” it

B) it wouldn’t work. Teachers have contracts. I cannot advocate for my colleague to be fired. If they have done something egregious like improperly touching or communicating with a child I can report that and admin can follow up and the school board can investigate and fire. Even THAT takes forever. We don’t like dead weight anymore than you do but we have no power to tell the school board to violate someone’s contract and fire them because they aren’t as good at teaching as others.

When I say “organize and advocate” I mean at the public level. Write letters as a group to the school board and ask for higher standards for teachers evaluations and metrics for success to be written into next years contract, ask your Union representatives (where applicable) to put in the contract negotiations that poor teachers lose union protection, whatever you want. But advocate for it in public with the power you have if it really does impact your working conditions and the dead weight really does bother you.

Because otherwise the point boils down to “I don’t want to do more because my colleague is bad at their job” which anyone in any job will tell you happens all the time— and is not the fault of the student.

Again, you have NO IDEA how teachers are or are not advocating for their workplace. We cannot stand in front of the school board at public meetings and make comments that name people, this is explicitly prohibited. We CAN report and write letters to admin , school board, ombudsman with concerns or complaints, and teachers do, but YOU WOULD NOT SEE THIS because it does not pertain to you!

You can stand in front of the schoolboard and say, poor performers are negatively impacting your working conditions and contributing to burnout. Just like you did here. You would have a lot of support from parents if you brought that up in a meeting.

As you see here, many parents do think poor performing teachers pertain to us when our children are assigned them and we are told to spend thousands for private tutoring, but not to use any school-based solutions because that contributes to burnout.

So your solution is to put the responsibility on the good teachers, who are high performing because they are already giving you their all. You want it to be their responsibility to fix the poor performers.

Blood from stone.

Can you name another profession where the common response is “I know your workload is beyond unsustainable and you are doing far more than we pay you for, but we expect even more. Sacrifice more. After all, it’s for the kids.”

I can’t imagine another profession where advocating for improvements to your own working conditions— because dead weight is “just as bad for teachers” right?— is characterized as an impossible sacrifice.

I’m doing a tremendous job. I’m the teacher with the large class sizes because parents switch their kids into my class. I’m doing my part and then some.

I am not admin. I can’t change what’s going on next door; I don’t have the time or authority. At some point, I have to say no. As it stands, you get me at my best. My family gets me at my worst. So no, I can’t fix other classrooms for you.

So as I already sacrifice my health and family for you, ask yourself why you think you can demand more.

And before you come at me for finding time during the school day: this is my 12 minute break before the 4 hour marathon to my next break. I’m entitled.

Clearly you're appreciated, but you seem to want to play martyr with a big spoonful of "if your kids fail it's not my fault."

No one was blaming you or expecting you to do the impossible. They just want their own kids to succeed and not get dragged down by another teacher who can't teach.

No, I’m not being a martyr. I’m being asked to be one. There’s a difference.

I’m doing my job. It’s not my responsibility to remove poor-performing teachers.

There are people employed by the school system with that responsibility: administrators. Yet the PP isn’t demanding they do the job they were hired to do; she’s saying successful teachers should do this for her, as well. Because apparently we aren’t doing enough for the children as it is.

It’s just another unreasonable and illogical demand placed on teachers.

You’re truly narcissistic in your ability to make everything about you.

Well, since I’m literally the one being told to do more, I guess it is about me. I’m not sure what’s narcissistic about that.

You’re just giving off union rep vibes. Robyn Lady must be a good friend of yours. Neither of you seem to care nearly as much about kids as you do about yourselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask to be switched. Every schools know who the problematic teachers are and what they teach. No school is going to pro-actively move your kid so ask to have the kid moved and give examples of why.

This is one of the many reasons teachers burn out.

When schools honor these switches, the good teachers end up with huge classes and the “bad” teachers have minuscule rosters.

So the good teachers are taking home twice the papers to grade. They have twice the students to manage and twice the parent emails to answer.

So the good teachers burn out at a fast pace, often feeling tons of resentment because they are doing twice the work for the same pay.

And when they don’t honor these switches, a kid gets behind in math. The schools role is to educate students. Teachers could organize and advocate for the removal of low performing teachers if it’s adversely impacting their workplace, but for some reason I don’t see that effort…?

A) how would you even know if they did that or not? It’s a personnel issue. Of course you don’t “see” it

B) it wouldn’t work. Teachers have contracts. I cannot advocate for my colleague to be fired. If they have done something egregious like improperly touching or communicating with a child I can report that and admin can follow up and the school board can investigate and fire. Even THAT takes forever. We don’t like dead weight anymore than you do but we have no power to tell the school board to violate someone’s contract and fire them because they aren’t as good at teaching as others.

When I say “organize and advocate” I mean at the public level. Write letters as a group to the school board and ask for higher standards for teachers evaluations and metrics for success to be written into next years contract, ask your Union representatives (where applicable) to put in the contract negotiations that poor teachers lose union protection, whatever you want. But advocate for it in public with the power you have if it really does impact your working conditions and the dead weight really does bother you.

Because otherwise the point boils down to “I don’t want to do more because my colleague is bad at their job” which anyone in any job will tell you happens all the time— and is not the fault of the student.

Again, you have NO IDEA how teachers are or are not advocating for their workplace. We cannot stand in front of the school board at public meetings and make comments that name people, this is explicitly prohibited. We CAN report and write letters to admin , school board, ombudsman with concerns or complaints, and teachers do, but YOU WOULD NOT SEE THIS because it does not pertain to you!

You can stand in front of the schoolboard and say, poor performers are negatively impacting your working conditions and contributing to burnout. Just like you did here. You would have a lot of support from parents if you brought that up in a meeting.

As you see here, many parents do think poor performing teachers pertain to us when our children are assigned them and we are told to spend thousands for private tutoring, but not to use any school-based solutions because that contributes to burnout.

So your solution is to put the responsibility on the good teachers, who are high performing because they are already giving you their all. You want it to be their responsibility to fix the poor performers.

Blood from stone.

Can you name another profession where the common response is “I know your workload is beyond unsustainable and you are doing far more than we pay you for, but we expect even more. Sacrifice more. After all, it’s for the kids.”

I can’t imagine another profession where advocating for improvements to your own working conditions— because dead weight is “just as bad for teachers” right?— is characterized as an impossible sacrifice.

I’m doing a tremendous job. I’m the teacher with the large class sizes because parents switch their kids into my class. I’m doing my part and then some.

I am not admin. I can’t change what’s going on next door; I don’t have the time or authority. At some point, I have to say no. As it stands, you get me at my best. My family gets me at my worst. So no, I can’t fix other classrooms for you.

So as I already sacrifice my health and family for you, ask yourself why you think you can demand more.

And before you come at me for finding time during the school day: this is my 12 minute break before the 4 hour marathon to my next break. I’m entitled.

Clearly you're appreciated, but you seem to want to play martyr with a big spoonful of "if your kids fail it's not my fault."

No one was blaming you or expecting you to do the impossible. They just want their own kids to succeed and not get dragged down by another teacher who can't teach.

No, I’m not being a martyr. I’m being asked to be one. There’s a difference.

I’m doing my job. It’s not my responsibility to remove poor-performing teachers.

There are people employed by the school system with that responsibility: administrators. Yet the PP isn’t demanding they do the job they were hired to do; she’s saying successful teachers should do this for her, as well. Because apparently we aren’t doing enough for the children as it is.

It’s just another unreasonable and illogical demand placed on teachers.

You’re truly narcissistic in your ability to make everything about you.

Well, since I’m literally the one being told to do more, I guess it is about me. I’m not sure what’s narcissistic about that.

Who is telling you to do more? If you're happy being tremendous and picking up the slack then you go girl. Just don’t ask parents to accept bad teachers in order to “help” good ones. Help yourself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask to be switched. Every schools know who the problematic teachers are and what they teach. No school is going to pro-actively move your kid so ask to have the kid moved and give examples of why.

This is one of the many reasons teachers burn out.

When schools honor these switches, the good teachers end up with huge classes and the “bad” teachers have minuscule rosters.

So the good teachers are taking home twice the papers to grade. They have twice the students to manage and twice the parent emails to answer.

So the good teachers burn out at a fast pace, often feeling tons of resentment because they are doing twice the work for the same pay.

And when they don’t honor these switches, a kid gets behind in math. The schools role is to educate students. Teachers could organize and advocate for the removal of low performing teachers if it’s adversely impacting their workplace, but for some reason I don’t see that effort…?

A) how would you even know if they did that or not? It’s a personnel issue. Of course you don’t “see” it

B) it wouldn’t work. Teachers have contracts. I cannot advocate for my colleague to be fired. If they have done something egregious like improperly touching or communicating with a child I can report that and admin can follow up and the school board can investigate and fire. Even THAT takes forever. We don’t like dead weight anymore than you do but we have no power to tell the school board to violate someone’s contract and fire them because they aren’t as good at teaching as others.

When I say “organize and advocate” I mean at the public level. Write letters as a group to the school board and ask for higher standards for teachers evaluations and metrics for success to be written into next years contract, ask your Union representatives (where applicable) to put in the contract negotiations that poor teachers lose union protection, whatever you want. But advocate for it in public with the power you have if it really does impact your working conditions and the dead weight really does bother you.

Because otherwise the point boils down to “I don’t want to do more because my colleague is bad at their job” which anyone in any job will tell you happens all the time— and is not the fault of the student.

Again, you have NO IDEA how teachers are or are not advocating for their workplace. We cannot stand in front of the school board at public meetings and make comments that name people, this is explicitly prohibited. We CAN report and write letters to admin , school board, ombudsman with concerns or complaints, and teachers do, but YOU WOULD NOT SEE THIS because it does not pertain to you!

You can stand in front of the schoolboard and say, poor performers are negatively impacting your working conditions and contributing to burnout. Just like you did here. You would have a lot of support from parents if you brought that up in a meeting.

As you see here, many parents do think poor performing teachers pertain to us when our children are assigned them and we are told to spend thousands for private tutoring, but not to use any school-based solutions because that contributes to burnout.

So your solution is to put the responsibility on the good teachers, who are high performing because they are already giving you their all. You want it to be their responsibility to fix the poor performers.

Blood from stone.

Can you name another profession where the common response is “I know your workload is beyond unsustainable and you are doing far more than we pay you for, but we expect even more. Sacrifice more. After all, it’s for the kids.”

I can’t imagine another profession where advocating for improvements to your own working conditions— because dead weight is “just as bad for teachers” right?— is characterized as an impossible sacrifice.

I’m doing a tremendous job. I’m the teacher with the large class sizes because parents switch their kids into my class. I’m doing my part and then some.

I am not admin. I can’t change what’s going on next door; I don’t have the time or authority. At some point, I have to say no. As it stands, you get me at my best. My family gets me at my worst. So no, I can’t fix other classrooms for you.

So as I already sacrifice my health and family for you, ask yourself why you think you can demand more.

And before you come at me for finding time during the school day: this is my 12 minute break before the 4 hour marathon to my next break. I’m entitled.

Clearly you're appreciated, but you seem to want to play martyr with a big spoonful of "if your kids fail it's not my fault."

No one was blaming you or expecting you to do the impossible. They just want their own kids to succeed and not get dragged down by another teacher who can't teach.

No, I’m not being a martyr. I’m being asked to be one. There’s a difference.

I’m doing my job. It’s not my responsibility to remove poor-performing teachers.

There are people employed by the school system with that responsibility: administrators. Yet the PP isn’t demanding they do the job they were hired to do; she’s saying successful teachers should do this for her, as well. Because apparently we aren’t doing enough for the children as it is.

It’s just another unreasonable and illogical demand placed on teachers.

You’re truly narcissistic in your ability to make everything about you.

Well, since I’m literally the one being told to do more, I guess it is about me. I’m not sure what’s narcissistic about that.

Who is telling you to do more? If you're happy being tremendous and picking up the slack then you go girl. Just don’t ask parents to accept bad teachers in order to “help” good ones. Help yourself.

My ONLY issue on this thread is that a parent is saying it’s the strong teachers’ responsibility to get the bad teachers fired. It’s not. Nor are we failing students for saying that (which was also suggested).

If we can agree that job belongs to admin, then I’m good. I don’t see how I should be spending time advocating for a colleague’s dismissal when I should be teaching my students.

This is an odd demand and an odd thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask to be switched. Every schools know who the problematic teachers are and what they teach. No school is going to pro-actively move your kid so ask to have the kid moved and give examples of why.

This is one of the many reasons teachers burn out.

When schools honor these switches, the good teachers end up with huge classes and the “bad” teachers have minuscule rosters.

So the good teachers are taking home twice the papers to grade. They have twice the students to manage and twice the parent emails to answer.

So the good teachers burn out at a fast pace, often feeling tons of resentment because they are doing twice the work for the same pay.

And when they don’t honor these switches, a kid gets behind in math. The schools role is to educate students. Teachers could organize and advocate for the removal of low performing teachers if it’s adversely impacting their workplace, but for some reason I don’t see that effort…?

A) how would you even know if they did that or not? It’s a personnel issue. Of course you don’t “see” it

B) it wouldn’t work. Teachers have contracts. I cannot advocate for my colleague to be fired. If they have done something egregious like improperly touching or communicating with a child I can report that and admin can follow up and the school board can investigate and fire. Even THAT takes forever. We don’t like dead weight anymore than you do but we have no power to tell the school board to violate someone’s contract and fire them because they aren’t as good at teaching as others.

When I say “organize and advocate” I mean at the public level. Write letters as a group to the school board and ask for higher standards for teachers evaluations and metrics for success to be written into next years contract, ask your Union representatives (where applicable) to put in the contract negotiations that poor teachers lose union protection, whatever you want. But advocate for it in public with the power you have if it really does impact your working conditions and the dead weight really does bother you.

Because otherwise the point boils down to “I don’t want to do more because my colleague is bad at their job” which anyone in any job will tell you happens all the time— and is not the fault of the student.

Again, you have NO IDEA how teachers are or are not advocating for their workplace. We cannot stand in front of the school board at public meetings and make comments that name people, this is explicitly prohibited. We CAN report and write letters to admin , school board, ombudsman with concerns or complaints, and teachers do, but YOU WOULD NOT SEE THIS because it does not pertain to you!

You can stand in front of the schoolboard and say, poor performers are negatively impacting your working conditions and contributing to burnout. Just like you did here. You would have a lot of support from parents if you brought that up in a meeting.

As you see here, many parents do think poor performing teachers pertain to us when our children are assigned them and we are told to spend thousands for private tutoring, but not to use any school-based solutions because that contributes to burnout.

So your solution is to put the responsibility on the good teachers, who are high performing because they are already giving you their all. You want it to be their responsibility to fix the poor performers.

Blood from stone.

Can you name another profession where the common response is “I know your workload is beyond unsustainable and you are doing far more than we pay you for, but we expect even more. Sacrifice more. After all, it’s for the kids.”

I can’t imagine another profession where advocating for improvements to your own working conditions— because dead weight is “just as bad for teachers” right?— is characterized as an impossible sacrifice.

I’m doing a tremendous job. I’m the teacher with the large class sizes because parents switch their kids into my class. I’m doing my part and then some.

I am not admin. I can’t change what’s going on next door; I don’t have the time or authority. At some point, I have to say no. As it stands, you get me at my best. My family gets me at my worst. So no, I can’t fix other classrooms for you.

So as I already sacrifice my health and family for you, ask yourself why you think you can demand more.

And before you come at me for finding time during the school day: this is my 12 minute break before the 4 hour marathon to my next break. I’m entitled.

Clearly you're appreciated, but you seem to want to play martyr with a big spoonful of "if your kids fail it's not my fault."

No one was blaming you or expecting you to do the impossible. They just want their own kids to succeed and not get dragged down by another teacher who can't teach.

No, I’m not being a martyr. I’m being asked to be one. There’s a difference.

I’m doing my job. It’s not my responsibility to remove poor-performing teachers.

There are people employed by the school system with that responsibility: administrators. Yet the PP isn’t demanding they do the job they were hired to do; she’s saying successful teachers should do this for her, as well. Because apparently we aren’t doing enough for the children as it is.

It’s just another unreasonable and illogical demand placed on teachers.

You’re truly narcissistic in your ability to make everything about you.

Well, since I’m literally the one being told to do more, I guess it is about me. I’m not sure what’s narcissistic about that.

Who is telling you to do more? If you're happy being tremendous and picking up the slack then you go girl. Just don’t ask parents to accept bad teachers in order to “help” good ones. Help yourself.

My ONLY issue on this thread is that a parent is saying it’s the strong teachers’ responsibility to get the bad teachers fired. It’s not. Nor are we failing students for saying that (which was also suggested).

If we can agree that job belongs to admin, then I’m good. I don’t see how I should be spending time advocating for a colleague’s dismissal when I should be teaching my students.

This is an odd demand and an odd thread.

+1 Former teacher. Taught with lots of great teachers and a few very poor ones. Not the good teacher's job to go after the poor teacher. The administration knows.
Now, if it is a new teacher, I do think the experienced teachers should try to be helpful. But, sometimes. help is not wanted.
Again, teachers have enough on their plate without taking over the administration's job. That said, an administrator has to do a lot of work to get rid of a teacher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask to be switched. Every schools know who the problematic teachers are and what they teach. No school is going to pro-actively move your kid so ask to have the kid moved and give examples of why.

This is one of the many reasons teachers burn out.

When schools honor these switches, the good teachers end up with huge classes and the “bad” teachers have minuscule rosters.

So the good teachers are taking home twice the papers to grade. They have twice the students to manage and twice the parent emails to answer.

So the good teachers burn out at a fast pace, often feeling tons of resentment because they are doing twice the work for the same pay.

And when they don’t honor these switches, a kid gets behind in math. The schools role is to educate students. Teachers could organize and advocate for the removal of low performing teachers if it’s adversely impacting their workplace, but for some reason I don’t see that effort…?

A) how would you even know if they did that or not? It’s a personnel issue. Of course you don’t “see” it

B) it wouldn’t work. Teachers have contracts. I cannot advocate for my colleague to be fired. If they have done something egregious like improperly touching or communicating with a child I can report that and admin can follow up and the school board can investigate and fire. Even THAT takes forever. We don’t like dead weight anymore than you do but we have no power to tell the school board to violate someone’s contract and fire them because they aren’t as good at teaching as others.

The suggestions that teachers do a little self-advocacy comes from this claim that they suffer from bad teachers too. If thats false than cool, enjoy carrying your colleagues dead weight and stop telling parents not to advocate for their kids

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask to be switched. Every schools know who the problematic teachers are and what they teach. No school is going to pro-actively move your kid so ask to have the kid moved and give examples of why.

This is one of the many reasons teachers burn out.

When schools honor these switches, the good teachers end up with huge classes and the “bad” teachers have minuscule rosters.

So the good teachers are taking home twice the papers to grade. They have twice the students to manage and twice the parent emails to answer.

So the good teachers burn out at a fast pace, often feeling tons of resentment because they are doing twice the work for the same pay.

And when they don’t honor these switches, a kid gets behind in math. The schools role is to educate students. Teachers could organize and advocate for the removal of low performing teachers if it’s adversely impacting their workplace, but for some reason I don’t see that effort…?

A) how would you even know if they did that or not? It’s a personnel issue. Of course you don’t “see” it

B) it wouldn’t work. Teachers have contracts. I cannot advocate for my colleague to be fired. If they have done something egregious like improperly touching or communicating with a child I can report that and admin can follow up and the school board can investigate and fire. Even THAT takes forever. We don’t like dead weight anymore than you do but we have no power to tell the school board to violate someone’s contract and fire them because they aren’t as good at teaching as others.

When I say “organize and advocate” I mean at the public level. Write letters as a group to the school board and ask for higher standards for teachers evaluations and metrics for success to be written into next years contract, ask your Union representatives (where applicable) to put in the contract negotiations that poor teachers lose union protection, whatever you want. But advocate for it in public with the power you have if it really does impact your working conditions and the dead weight really does bother you.

Because otherwise the point boils down to “I don’t want to do more because my colleague is bad at their job” which anyone in any job will tell you happens all the time— and is not the fault of the student.

Again, you have NO IDEA how teachers are or are not advocating for their workplace. We cannot stand in front of the school board at public meetings and make comments that name people, this is explicitly prohibited. We CAN report and write letters to admin , school board, ombudsman with concerns or complaints, and teachers do, but YOU WOULD NOT SEE THIS because it does not pertain to you!

You can stand in front of the schoolboard and say, poor performers are negatively impacting your working conditions and contributing to burnout. Just like you did here. You would have a lot of support from parents if you brought that up in a meeting.

As you see here, many parents do think poor performing teachers pertain to us when our children are assigned them and we are told to spend thousands for private tutoring, but not to use any school-based solutions because that contributes to burnout.

So your solution is to put the responsibility on the good teachers, who are high performing because they are already giving you their all. You want it to be their responsibility to fix the poor performers.

Blood from stone.

Can you name another profession where the common response is “I know your workload is beyond unsustainable and you are doing far more than we pay you for, but we expect even more. Sacrifice more. After all, it’s for the kids.”

I can’t imagine another profession where advocating for improvements to your own working conditions— because dead weight is “just as bad for teachers” right?— is characterized as an impossible sacrifice.

I’m doing a tremendous job. I’m the teacher with the large class sizes because parents switch their kids into my class. I’m doing my part and then some.

I am not admin. I can’t change what’s going on next door; I don’t have the time or authority. At some point, I have to say no. As it stands, you get me at my best. My family gets me at my worst. So no, I can’t fix other classrooms for you.

So as I already sacrifice my health and family for you, ask yourself why you think you can demand more.

And before you come at me for finding time during the school day: this is my 12 minute break before the 4 hour marathon to my next break. I’m entitled.

Clearly you're appreciated, but you seem to want to play martyr with a big spoonful of "if your kids fail it's not my fault."

No one was blaming you or expecting you to do the impossible. They just want their own kids to succeed and not get dragged down by another teacher who can't teach.

No, I’m not being a martyr. I’m being asked to be one. There’s a difference.

I’m doing my job. It’s not my responsibility to remove poor-performing teachers.

There are people employed by the school system with that responsibility: administrators. Yet the PP isn’t demanding they do the job they were hired to do; she’s saying successful teachers should do this for her, as well. Because apparently we aren’t doing enough for the children as it is.

It’s just another unreasonable and illogical demand placed on teachers.

You’re truly narcissistic in your ability to make everything about you.

Well, since I’m literally the one being told to do more, I guess it is about me. I’m not sure what’s narcissistic about that.

Who is telling you to do more? If you're happy being tremendous and picking up the slack then you go girl. Just don’t ask parents to accept bad teachers in order to “help” good ones. Help yourself.

My ONLY issue on this thread is that a parent is saying it’s the strong teachers’ responsibility to get the bad teachers fired. It’s not. Nor are we failing students for saying that (which was also suggested).

If we can agree that job belongs to admin, then I’m good. I don’t see how I should be spending time advocating for a colleague’s dismissal when I should be teaching my students.

This is an odd demand and an odd thread.

It’s your responsibility if you're saying you don’t want parents to switch their kids away from bad teachers because it’s somehow “unfair” on good ones. It’s your workplace issue, you sort it out, you don’t get to blame parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask to be switched. Every schools know who the problematic teachers are and what they teach. No school is going to pro-actively move your kid so ask to have the kid moved and give examples of why.

This is one of the many reasons teachers burn out.

When schools honor these switches, the good teachers end up with huge classes and the “bad” teachers have minuscule rosters.

So the good teachers are taking home twice the papers to grade. They have twice the students to manage and twice the parent emails to answer.

So the good teachers burn out at a fast pace, often feeling tons of resentment because they are doing twice the work for the same pay.

And when they don’t honor these switches, a kid gets behind in math. The schools role is to educate students. Teachers could organize and advocate for the removal of low performing teachers if it’s adversely impacting their workplace, but for some reason I don’t see that effort…?

A) how would you even know if they did that or not? It’s a personnel issue. Of course you don’t “see” it

B) it wouldn’t work. Teachers have contracts. I cannot advocate for my colleague to be fired. If they have done something egregious like improperly touching or communicating with a child I can report that and admin can follow up and the school board can investigate and fire. Even THAT takes forever. We don’t like dead weight anymore than you do but we have no power to tell the school board to violate someone’s contract and fire them because they aren’t as good at teaching as others.

The suggestions that teachers do a little self-advocacy comes from this claim that they suffer from bad teachers too. If thats false than cool, enjoy carrying your colleagues dead weight and stop telling parents not to advocate for their kids

Relax. Nobody is telling you that you shouldn’t advocate for your kids.

Of course we pull the weight of bad teachers, but it isn’t our responsibility to fix that problem. There are people in the school who are directly, specifically tasked with that job.

You seem mad that teachers aren’t doing more for you than they already are. I’m not sure why? If you want poor teachers removed, I recommend you turn your ire to your school’s admin team. They get paid the bigger bucks to deal with these issues. Don’t encourage teachers to create an environment where they are turning on each other. How does THAT benefit your child?

[Anonymous]

The suggestions that teachers do a little self-advocacy comes from this claim that they suffer from bad teachers too. If thats false than cool, enjoy carrying your colleagues dead weight and stop telling parents not to advocate for their kids

1. As a teacher, you are seldom in another teacher's classroom. You do not necessarily know what other teachers are doing. If you have team meetings, you can get a sense of it. As an elementary teacher, I knew if another teacher's class was rowdy--but that does not mean she is a poor teacher.
2. What, exactly, do you expect a teacher to do?

Do you work?
If so, do you complain about your co-workers to your boss? Do you try to get them fired?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask to be switched. Every schools know who the problematic teachers are and what they teach. No school is going to pro-actively move your kid so ask to have the kid moved and give examples of why.

This is one of the many reasons teachers burn out.

When schools honor these switches, the good teachers end up with huge classes and the “bad” teachers have minuscule rosters.

So the good teachers are taking home twice the papers to grade. They have twice the students to manage and twice the parent emails to answer.

So the good teachers burn out at a fast pace, often feeling tons of resentment because they are doing twice the work for the same pay.

This post is why teachers should advocate for higher standards and accountability, if they really feel all this resentment about mismatched workloads.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask to be switched. Every schools know who the problematic teachers are and what they teach. No school is going to pro-actively move your kid so ask to have the kid moved and give examples of why.

This is one of the many reasons teachers burn out.

When schools honor these switches, the good teachers end up with huge classes and the “bad” teachers have minuscule rosters.

So the good teachers are taking home twice the papers to grade. They have twice the students to manage and twice the parent emails to answer.

So the good teachers burn out at a fast pace, often feeling tons of resentment because they are doing twice the work for the same pay.

And when they don’t honor these switches, a kid gets behind in math. The schools role is to educate students. Teachers could organize and advocate for the removal of low performing teachers if it’s adversely impacting their workplace, but for some reason I don’t see that effort…?

A) how would you even know if they did that or not? It’s a personnel issue. Of course you don’t “see” it

B) it wouldn’t work. Teachers have contracts. I cannot advocate for my colleague to be fired. If they have done something egregious like improperly touching or communicating with a child I can report that and admin can follow up and the school board can investigate and fire. Even THAT takes forever. We don’t like dead weight anymore than you do but we have no power to tell the school board to violate someone’s contract and fire them because they aren’t as good at teaching as others.

When I say “organize and advocate” I mean at the public level. Write letters as a group to the school board and ask for higher standards for teachers evaluations and metrics for success to be written into next years contract, ask your Union representatives (where applicable) to put in the contract negotiations that poor teachers lose union protection, whatever you want. But advocate for it in public with the power you have if it really does impact your working conditions and the dead weight really does bother you.

Because otherwise the point boils down to “I don’t want to do more because my colleague is bad at their job” which anyone in any job will tell you happens all the time— and is not the fault of the student.

Again, you have NO IDEA how teachers are or are not advocating for their workplace. We cannot stand in front of the school board at public meetings and make comments that name people, this is explicitly prohibited. We CAN report and write letters to admin , school board, ombudsman with concerns or complaints, and teachers do, but YOU WOULD NOT SEE THIS because it does not pertain to you!

You can stand in front of the schoolboard and say, poor performers are negatively impacting your working conditions and contributing to burnout. Just like you did here. You would have a lot of support from parents if you brought that up in a meeting.

As you see here, many parents do think poor performing teachers pertain to us when our children are assigned them and we are told to spend thousands for private tutoring, but not to use any school-based solutions because that contributes to burnout.

So your solution is to put the responsibility on the good teachers, who are high performing because they are already giving you their all. You want it to be their responsibility to fix the poor performers.

Blood from stone.

Can you name another profession where the common response is “I know your workload is beyond unsustainable and you are doing far more than we pay you for, but we expect even more. Sacrifice more. After all, it’s for the kids.”

I can’t imagine another profession where advocating for improvements to your own working conditions— because dead weight is “just as bad for teachers” right?— is characterized as an impossible sacrifice.

I’m doing a tremendous job. I’m the teacher with the large class sizes because parents switch their kids into my class. I’m doing my part and then some.

I am not admin. I can’t change what’s going on next door; I don’t have the time or authority. At some point, I have to say no. As it stands, you get me at my best. My family gets me at my worst. So no, I can’t fix other classrooms for you.

So as I already sacrifice my health and family for you, ask yourself why you think you can demand more.

And before you come at me for finding time during the school day: this is my 12 minute break before the 4 hour marathon to my next break. I’m entitled.

Clearly you're appreciated, but you seem to want to play martyr with a big spoonful of "if your kids fail it's not my fault."

No one was blaming you or expecting you to do the impossible. They just want their own kids to succeed and not get dragged down by another teacher who can't teach.

No, I’m not being a martyr. I’m being asked to be one. There’s a difference.

I’m doing my job. It’s not my responsibility to remove poor-performing teachers.

There are people employed by the school system with that responsibility: administrators. Yet the PP isn’t demanding they do the job they were hired to do; she’s saying successful teachers should do this for her, as well. Because apparently we aren’t doing enough for the children as it is.

It’s just another unreasonable and illogical demand placed on teachers.

You’re truly narcissistic in your ability to make everything about you.

Well, since I’m literally the one being told to do more, I guess it is about me. I’m not sure what’s narcissistic about that.

Who is telling you to do more? If you're happy being tremendous and picking up the slack then you go girl. Just don’t ask parents to accept bad teachers in order to “help” good ones. Help yourself.

My ONLY issue on this thread is that a parent is saying it’s the strong teachers’ responsibility to get the bad teachers fired. It’s not. Nor are we failing students for saying that (which was also suggested).

If we can agree that job belongs to admin, then I’m good. I don’t see how I should be spending time advocating for a colleague’s dismissal when I should be teaching my students.

This is an odd demand and an odd thread.

It’s your responsibility if you're saying you don’t want parents to switch their kids away from bad teachers because it’s somehow “unfair” on good ones. It’s your workplace issue, you sort it out, you don’t get to blame parents.

Same poster, I’m guessing? RELAX!

Who is blaming you? Just be reasonable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The suggestions that teachers do a little self-advocacy comes from this claim that they suffer from bad teachers too. If thats false than cool, enjoy carrying your colleagues dead weight and stop telling parents not to advocate for their kids

1. As a teacher, you are seldom in another teacher's classroom. You do not necessarily know what other teachers are doing. If you have team meetings, you can get a sense of it. As an elementary teacher, I knew if another teacher's class was rowdy--but that does not mean she is a poor teacher.
2. What, exactly, do you expect a teacher to do?

Do you work?
If so, do you complain about your co-workers to your boss? Do you try to get them fired?

I’ve already answered thus— I am the boss. When people come to me with issues of colleagues not pulling their weight, its my job to solve those problems. Yes sometimes that means I fire a low performer, since low performers create the resentment and toxicity discussed above— that doesn’t mean the person who reported the issue is bad.

[Anonymous]

Two years ago, another horrible math teacher at Cooper got a lot complaints. He doesn't teach at Cooper now. Maybe complaints to school admin works.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask to be switched. Every schools know who the problematic teachers are and what they teach. No school is going to pro-actively move your kid so ask to have the kid moved and give examples of why.

This is one of the many reasons teachers burn out.

When schools honor these switches, the good teachers end up with huge classes and the “bad” teachers have minuscule rosters.

So the good teachers are taking home twice the papers to grade. They have twice the students to manage and twice the parent emails to answer.

So the good teachers burn out at a fast pace, often feeling tons of resentment because they are doing twice the work for the same pay.

And when they don’t honor these switches, a kid gets behind in math. The schools role is to educate students. Teachers could organize and advocate for the removal of low performing teachers if it’s adversely impacting their workplace, but for some reason I don’t see that effort…?

A) how would you even know if they did that or not? It’s a personnel issue. Of course you don’t “see” it

B) it wouldn’t work. Teachers have contracts. I cannot advocate for my colleague to be fired. If they have done something egregious like improperly touching or communicating with a child I can report that and admin can follow up and the school board can investigate and fire. Even THAT takes forever. We don’t like dead weight anymore than you do but we have no power to tell the school board to violate someone’s contract and fire them because they aren’t as good at teaching as others.

When I say “organize and advocate” I mean at the public level. Write letters as a group to the school board and ask for higher standards for teachers evaluations and metrics for success to be written into next years contract, ask your Union representatives (where applicable) to put in the contract negotiations that poor teachers lose union protection, whatever you want. But advocate for it in public with the power you have if it really does impact your working conditions and the dead weight really does bother you.

Because otherwise the point boils down to “I don’t want to do more because my colleague is bad at their job” which anyone in any job will tell you happens all the time— and is not the fault of the student.

Again, you have NO IDEA how teachers are or are not advocating for their workplace. We cannot stand in front of the school board at public meetings and make comments that name people, this is explicitly prohibited. We CAN report and write letters to admin , school board, ombudsman with concerns or complaints, and teachers do, but YOU WOULD NOT SEE THIS because it does not pertain to you!

You can stand in front of the schoolboard and say, poor performers are negatively impacting your working conditions and contributing to burnout. Just like you did here. You would have a lot of support from parents if you brought that up in a meeting.

As you see here, many parents do think poor performing teachers pertain to us when our children are assigned them and we are told to spend thousands for private tutoring, but not to use any school-based solutions because that contributes to burnout.

So your solution is to put the responsibility on the good teachers, who are high performing because they are already giving you their all. You want it to be their responsibility to fix the poor performers.

Blood from stone.

Can you name another profession where the common response is “I know your workload is beyond unsustainable and you are doing far more than we pay you for, but we expect even more. Sacrifice more. After all, it’s for the kids.”

I can’t imagine another profession where advocating for improvements to your own working conditions— because dead weight is “just as bad for teachers” right?— is characterized as an impossible sacrifice.

I’m doing a tremendous job. I’m the teacher with the large class sizes because parents switch their kids into my class. I’m doing my part and then some.

I am not admin. I can’t change what’s going on next door; I don’t have the time or authority. At some point, I have to say no. As it stands, you get me at my best. My family gets me at my worst. So no, I can’t fix other classrooms for you.

So as I already sacrifice my health and family for you, ask yourself why you think you can demand more.

And before you come at me for finding time during the school day: this is my 12 minute break before the 4 hour marathon to my next break. I’m entitled.

Clearly you're appreciated, but you seem to want to play martyr with a big spoonful of "if your kids fail it's not my fault."

No one was blaming you or expecting you to do the impossible. They just want their own kids to succeed and not get dragged down by another teacher who can't teach.

No, I’m not being a martyr. I’m being asked to be one. There’s a difference.

I’m doing my job. It’s not my responsibility to remove poor-performing teachers.

There are people employed by the school system with that responsibility: administrators. Yet the PP isn’t demanding they do the job they were hired to do; she’s saying successful teachers should do this for her, as well. Because apparently we aren’t doing enough for the children as it is.

It’s just another unreasonable and illogical demand placed on teachers.

You’re truly narcissistic in your ability to make everything about you.

Well, since I’m literally the one being told to do more, I guess it is about me. I’m not sure what’s narcissistic about that.

Who is telling you to do more? If you're happy being tremendous and picking up the slack then you go girl. Just don’t ask parents to accept bad teachers in order to “help” good ones. Help yourself.

My ONLY issue on this thread is that a parent is saying it’s the strong teachers’ responsibility to get the bad teachers fired. It’s not. Nor are we failing students for saying that (which was also suggested).

If we can agree that job belongs to admin, then I’m good. I don’t see how I should be spending time advocating for a colleague’s dismissal when I should be teaching my students.

This is an odd demand and an odd thread.

It’s your responsibility if you're saying you don’t want parents to switch their kids away from bad teachers because it’s somehow “unfair” on good ones. It’s your workplace issue, you sort it out, you don’t get to blame parents.

Same poster, I’m guessing? RELAX!

Who is blaming you? Just be reasonable.

The teacher quoted above is the one blaming parents.